How much of your electric bill is due to the heat pump?

Mind if i ask what school? Mine (a small charter school) was in the same boat until enrollment dropped and they had to go full public. I was firmly pro school choice based on my experience and I still am for schools that have no high school.

However I now think the potential negative consequences of sending public money to private institutions far outweigh the potential benefits. It should be limited to schools that have open enrollment.

-5 and feels like -26 with windchill here in Wardsboro. My chickens enjoyed their hot mash and scrambled eggs earlier.

Many private schools in Vermont cost less per year than the average amount spent on a per student basis in Vermont. Some cost more.

I think we can agree that those who send their kid overseas on a voucher should be curtailed.

Most who send their kid to a school (private or public) on a voucher are not rich. They may be privileged as they live in Vermont, but most aren’t rich.

Exactly. And expecting the cranks in Montpelier to understand that, let alone fix it, is crazy, in my opinion.

Unfortunately for second homes it’s a race to the bottom. Want to buy a second house near Stowe or Killington? Tax rate would definitely be a consideration

Between the subdivision restrictions of Act 250, wastewater permitting, and town zoning, it’s much easier (legally-speaking) to build a vacation house on 10 acres of pristine woods than it is to build missing middle housing in town and village centers. The irony is that this encourages and incentivizes sprawl as people build further afield, have big lot sizes (for non-ag use), and clear cut forest to establish views.

Good tips. I have a VT state flag and have wanted a GMB flag. Now I know where to get one.

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Mine is working totally fine. Temp in the house is exactly what I have it set at. I have two Mitsubishi heat pumps. A 12k btu system downstairs in 1/2 finished basement and 18k btu system upstairs. Noticed the aux heat coil came on on the one downstairs but the one upstairs hasn't come on.

We should start a club. LOL.

My single heat pump heats 90% of my house (1500squ ft) I’ve used maybe 30gallons of oil the whole winter.

We turned ours off and have the oil on, it would be functioning in auxiliary and be $$$ to run at the moment.

😁

I have propane backup. I don’t know how tech is these days, but I personally wouldn’t count on a heat pump alone.

Yes, it’s an older H2i model and is at my folks camp, which is poorly insulated and was somewhat undersized. I think that generation H2i had a hard shut-off at -13F or -15F. My current house is super well insulated and the Fujitsu compressor is appropriately sized for the four inside heads, and the heat/cool load of the house. I have no doubt it would keep my place comfy in this weather, just at a high electric usage rate. I burn wood as it’s cheaper and my wood stove is modern.

This will vary dramatically on the model. Most run at 100% efficiency down to around 20f. Cold-climate models will maintain their cost efficiency compared to oil, LNG, or LP to below 0f and operate below -20f when needed.

47°F is equivalent to 8°C, which is 281K.

^(I'm a bot that converts temperature between two units humans can understand, then convert it to Kelvin for bots and physicists to understand)

“At single-digit temperatures, the efficiency of heat pumps drops by almost half compared to 47°F temperature (HSPF rating, for example, is measured at 47°F).”

Not even a little. It years of bad policy (Act 250), years of NIMBYism and then rapid gentrification since 2020.

Is your Mitsubishi a cold-climate model? It should create plenty of heat down to -15 if sized appropriately for the heating load.

And then watch them become Air Bn Bs or be bought up by hedge funds. NIMBYism has definitely hurt housing very badly but America's predilection for allowing rich people to fuck everyone else over hasn't helped.

My understanding is once you get through the NIMBY Act 250 lawsuits, the only feasible build is Mc Mansions.

If it is the case that people are moving here to use our hotel program, it would make me genuinely proud to be a Vermonter. Times are tough and I'd appreciate a lower tax bill, but I seriously can't think of anything I'm more happy to pay taxes for than housing people who need it, regardless of where they're from. I hope I don't ever personally need that help, but many (most?) people are just an accident or diagnosis away from homelessness.

Your other comments:

>I don’t agree with giving free hotel rooms on our dime to people who came here for that.

I do, and I urge you to reconsider. It's just the right thing to do. Is it fair to us? No. Do I care? Yes, but not enough to deny shelter to people as I type this from my wood stove while the temperature plummets to -20 outside.

Vermont currently pays about as much in all public assistance as it does for prisons. The homeless vouchers are an absolutely tiny part of our budget. Instead of cutting the budget by refusing housing to the desperate, let's look at the parts of our budget that keeps poor people in jail just because they can't afford bail and cut it there. This part of our budget is doing good things.

>And actually to get your license/residency in VT I think you do need a bill now for your proof of residency, but I could be wrong.

If you were to implement a residency requirement for these vouchers, you're going to end up refusing housing to the homeless from Vermont. It is a well documented problem that they lack the necessary paperwork to interact with government bureaucracy. Many of them don't have licenses or bills or other proof of residency because they do not have residences.

The whole country has a severe lack of blue collar workers.